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The Early Word: Obama Talks Trade in Canada

Doug Mills/The New York TimesA worker gets ready for President Obama’s visit with Prime Minister Stephen Harper at Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

For the first foreign trip of his presidency, President Obama has chosen our neighbor to the north, and Thursday morning he will be in Ottawa for meetings with Canadian leaders, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

As The Times’s Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports, Mr. Obama intends to make clear to his Canadian counterpart that he will maintain a strong trading relationship with the country that is already the United States’ largest trading partner:

With Canadians up in arms over “Buy America” provisions in President Obama’s economic recovery package, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper warning the United States not to back away from its international treaty obligations, Mr. Obama, who will make a day trip to Ottawa on Thursday, is no longer emphasizing the idea of reopening Nafta.

Also on the president’s agenda for the day-long trip, which includes a meeting with opposition leader Michael Ignatieff, the environment, according to the Washington Post: “Environmental groups are pushing Obama to seek restrictions on tar sands oil, a dirtier form of oil that contributes about half of the oil imported into the United States from Canada.”

Back on American soil, The Times’s John M. Broder reports that the Environmental Protection Agency is looking to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. He writes that the decision “would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. It could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change legislation in Congress and form a basis for the United States’ negotiating position at United Nations climate talks set for December in Copenhagen.”

President Obama introduced a $275 billion plan to help struggling homeowners yesterday. Our Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Edmund L. Andrews report that the plan was “more ambitious and expensive than many housing analysts had expected.” But there’s a catch:

But analysts and administration officials alike cautioned that it would not come close to halting the tidal wave of foreclosures. Nor would it provide much help to millions of homeowners who are “under water,” or holding mortgages that are bigger that the market value of their houses.

The Wall Street Journal’s Michael R. Crittenden gets reaction from Democrats, who praised the housing plan and Republicans, some of whom are “wary of the scope of the proposal.”

The Cabinet Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has emerged as a viable choice for the position of secretary of health and human services. Mr. Obama originally nominated former Senator Tom Daschle to the post, but he withdrew his name over problems with his taxes. From The Times’s Peter Baker and Robert Pear:

It remained unclear whether the White House would finish vetting Ms. Sebelius in time to nominate her by next week. Advisers described her as “the leading candidate,” although they said other names were still in discussion and emphasized that no final decision had been made.

The Senate Just weeks after he was sworn in as the junior senator from Illinois, is it already curtains for Roland Burris? As the Washington Post’s Peter Slevin notes, Mr. Burris, “who thought he was crowning his pioneering career with a position at the political pinnacle finds himself fighting to save both his job and his reputation.”

And the Politico has other bleak news for Mr. Burris. He is “rapidly losing any political support he once had among colleagues, with Democrats from the statehouse to the White House raising questions about his entanglements with ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.”

I’m glad to see the EPA moving forward with regulating carbon emissions. That will be a huge step forward and continue the progressive agenda of making America’s economy function better while improving the lives of all Americans.

I hope President Obama has an enjoyable trip to Ottawa and makes a good impression with the Prime Minister. The more assistance we can get in fighting terrorists in Afghanistan, the better.

Remember a year ago, before the Ohio primary, all the back-and-forth recriminations about NAFTA?

I guess when Obama advisor Austen Goolsbee assured the Canadians that Obama’s tough talk on the North American Free Trade Agreement was just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously, he actually meant what he said after all. As did Hillary, when she said that Obama’s campaign had given the Canadians “the old wink-wink.” :

“I think that’s the kind of difference between talk and action that I’ve been talking about,” Clinton told reporters while campaigning in Ohio. “It raises questions about Senator Obama coming to Ohio and giving speeches against NAFTA.”

What’s amazing to me is how naive folks were about Sen. Roland Burris. What is it about this Chicago-style politics that allows politicians to lie about something…come clean about it…and continue to hold their high office.

I don’t see how it is possible to build a strong and productive society when our highest leaders are not punished for perjury by the courts or the voters.

Worst of all, it will be hard for us to set a positive example for Afghanistan or Mexico as our own political culture drifts off deeper and deeper into a place where lies and corruption are considered normal and okay.

Face it, NAFTA’s here to stay. Tweak it as needed, but keep in mind that Canada and the U.S. are each other’s largest trading partners. Mexico benefits as well. Last yeear’s primary pandering by both Obama and Clinton was unwise. Those jobs aren’t coming back in Ohio and elsewhere. Canada’s auto industry is in dire straigts as well. We’re all in the same boat.

I share the frustration of some Canadians that there is not one public event today in Ottawa. There’s a large group that’s gone there hoping for a glimpse. My Canadian friends are ecstatic about the vist and the shift in policy. They are recongnize the hard road ahead. Hopefully, there will be a state visit in warmer months with Michelle and the girls. No one does it better than our Canadian friends.

Robin Williams was wrong. Don’t blame Canada! We’re lucky to have them as a neighbor.

NAFTA might not be on the table for this meeting, but you have to admit it’s not the ideal time to talk about it either. That’s something Hilary often missed in her campaign: timing.

We need Canada to support us in Afghanistan, as they’ve announced that they will be pulling troops out of that conflict. The President need to choose his battles at the moment, he’s dealing with a plethora of wicked urgent issues, and I’d argue that reforming NAFTA isn’t as important as getting more support but from Canada and around the world in getting the conflict in Afghanistan, and the rebuilding, resolved as quickly as possible. We can’t go it alone in Afghanistan like we did in Iraq.

You rightly note that environmentalists are concerned about the damage done to public health, water, Boreal forest, migratory birds – and our climate – by tar sands oil extraction in Canada. But many other voices are being heard on this issue as well – including labor, indigenous communities, security experts, and mayors. The dirty fuels debate swirling around President Obama’s trip to Canada today highlights how different this Administration’s strong commitment to fight global warming is from the current Canadian government. Just today, the Pembina Institute in Canada (www.pembina.org) released analysis that shows that the U.S. is to invest over six times more per capita in renewable energy and energy efficiency than Canada in the new stimulus package. And the EPA plan to regulate carbon dioxide pollution follows this line of action on global warming in the U.S. – where we are not seeing any action in Canada. Dirty fuels such as tar sands oil are not compatible with fighting global warming. For more information on Canadian tar sands see //switchboard.nrdc.org/dirtyfuels.php.

John D wrote: “What is it about this Chicago-style politics that allows politicians to lie about something…come clean about it…and continue to hold their high office”.

It is the society we live in—say “sorry” and you are forgiven.

Do illegal steroids and get $25,000,000 a year, and all you have to do is say “sorry”.
Bomb the Pentagon, US Capitol Building, and NYC Police HQ in Times Square, and all you have to do is say “sorry”–correction–then you are rewarded as a Distinguished Professor.

Why isn’t there a blog about Allen Stanford–the financier who gave Mexican drug cartel money to Democrats in Congress.
That seems like a worthwhile topic–certainly more than cupcakes and Lincoln–don’t you think?

Remember a year ago, before the Ohio primary, all the back-and-forth recriminations about NAFTA?
— Carolyn (Rodham)

Remember a year ago, before the Ohio primary, when the Dow was at 12000 and there was still a Lehman Brothers? Things have changed a lot since then; this is certainly no time for further rocking of the economic boat. So though it’s clear that Hillary conspiracy theories still make up a significant part of your life, this one is a bit tenuous.

It looks to me that hearsay allegations of illegal Canadian contributions to the Obama campaign are an attempt to distract the discussion from public policy. That it is done in the context of accusing others of creating distractions is no suprise to me either.

Steve Bolger—Illegal Canadian contributions is not heresay, it is fact—look it up lazybones.

Truth is both McCain and Obama received illegal foreign funds, but Obama received 10 times more. If it was McCain that received the mega millions, and he was elected, your hypocritical self would be screaming from your desktop.

One Canadian made a $500 contribution to Obama with a note stating “I’m not an American Citizen”, yet Obama still took the money (and ran). That is pretty scary when a foreign influence is electing our President, and you are nothing but a partisan puppet if you think otherwise.

I absolutely remember the Obama controversy regarding NAFTA just before the Ohio primary. Please consider that he did pay a political price for his inconsistencies, perceived or otherwise, on that one.

Furthermore, had it not been for gaffes like this one, he wouldn’t have run such a flawless general campaign that led to his decisive victory that is in the process of reversing a near decade’s worth of bad decisions.

So, here we are today. NAFTA won’t be opened up because of its complexity, and, a year later, the economic outlook is completely different than anyone had ever anticipated. So, in that year, good reasons have continued to accumulate as to why NAFTA should not be re-opened for negotiation. Like Prime Minister Harper said today, if NAFTA gets re-opened, it will probably never be completed.

But, by today’s standards, I don’t want to look at last year’s kerfuffle out of context. He took that political battle as a political lesson that won’t be repeated. We should be grateful to have a leader who’s got an enormous capacity to learn from his mistakes, even if they are not his actual mistakes, but his satellites’ misjudgments.

When I watched the Canadian broadcaster interviewing President Obama, you could see the look of relief come over the broadcaster’s body language that the US finally has a leader back in position who understands the importance of Canada and US Relations.

We are lucky to have such talent that made our country look great today.

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